San Francisco Chief

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The San Francisco Chief was a named passenger train operated by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway as Nos. 1 & 2 from June 6, 1954 to May 1, 1971. Its route traversed the entire Santa Fe line from San Francisco, California south to Barstow, California, then east to Chicago, Illinois via the Belen cutoff. For most of its life it also exchanged through cars for/from Houston, Dallas, and New Orleans with the California Special at Clovis, New Mexico. At 2554.7 rail miles in length this was the longest passenger train itinerary in the history of the United States until 1993 when Amtrak extended the Sunset Limited east to Miami and Orlando. It remains the longest passenger rail itinerary ever operated entirely on the trackage of a single U.S. railroad. The San Francisco Chief was one of the very last new streamliners introduced to the traveling public in the post World War II era. The train's equipment was augmented with Budd Hi-level cars in 1964.

Despite its name, the San Francisco Chief never actually terminated in San Francisco. Instead, it ran to Santa Fe's Oakland Station (actually located in Emeryville), and after about 1960, Richmond. In the years when it ran to the Oakland depot, passengers could continue on to San Francisco by transferring to a Key System train which would take them to a San Francisco-bound ferry. After the Bay Bridge was completed, the journey could be made by Key System train on the lower deck of the bridge, or by bus. By the time service had been cut back to the Richmond depot, the San Francisco connection was by way of Santa Fe's own buses.

A 1954 consist:^{[citation needed]}